Thread by @willchamberlain

One of the biggest “fallacies” about debate/argument is that being able to identify logical fallacies by name is even remotely important

https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1429445467063074830

Arguments are pretty simple

There’s your overarching claim

There’s your warrants (reasoning/explanation)

And there’s your evidence (if needed)

You don’t need to know the “Texas Sharpshooter” to know that an argument isn’t persuasive and to be able to explain why

If an argument is bad it’s because the reasoning/evidence doesn’t support the claim

Don’t waste your time memorizing the names of fallacies

Just explain why the argument is wrong!

Some - most, actually - “fallacies” aren’t actually fallacies a good chunk of the time

Think about “slippery slope”

Some slopes really are slippery! Two years after they banned Alex Jones they banned the President of the United States

Also identifying a named “fallacy” and thinking that substitutes for explaining why an argument is bad is itself an appeal to authority

Can you see why?

I was ranked second in the nation in intercollegiate parliamentary debate

I coached the national champions the year after I graduated

And not once did I spend any time studying logical fallacies or teaching others about them

In a debate round you are under time pressure, so you have to be efficient

All the time you spend explaining what the hell the “Texas Sharpshooter” is you instead should be spending on the *substantive reasons* you are right and your opponent is wrong

The gulf between what laypeople think being good at debate/argument is about and what it’s actually about is enormous

Best done with the heuristics and biases literature (think Tversky and Kahneman), which is valuable

That’s distinct from the masturbatory fallacies stuff

https://twitter.com/Sharkyl/status/1429590950901207042